#as long as you're antifascist

[ms-demeanor]

i mean realistically many people do deserve to be the victims of targeted harassment campaigns. if you're being an asshole you deserve to be screamed at by everyone present until you stop. some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

the people of wendy's have a moral right to scream at the manager if said manager sprays them in the neck with milkshake every time they go to pick up their order

damn following up the last ask, ig it was someone in ur notes constructing an equivalence between @tting staff and getting nuked to yelling at a wendy's manager and getting kicked out. my bad lol thought that was part of ur main post

I mean this is something that's still worthwhile to bounce off of even though you're not actually responding to me.

First of all, no, I pretty much don't think that anybody deserves to be the focus of a targeted harassment campaign. At least not the kind that are spun up on tumblr or twitter. I generally think that targeted harassment campaigns don't work to change minds, they only work to torment, isolate, and attack people, which will often further entrench them in their positions.

Sometimes people doing serious antifascist work will make a discovery like, for instance "the principal of X school is a vicious antisemite" and will run an *exposure* campaign to get them removed from a position of power, but with very few exceptions when you see an online callout post for a random internet user it's nothing but abuse and an attempt to bully them off of a specific website, not an attempt to protect victims or inform people of a genuine threat. "ABC is the new alt of this person with a documented history of starting cults, DNI, block and move on" is very different than "This specific user who is on staff posts harry potter fanart and is why fascists continue to exist on tumblr, let's make sure they know what tumblr thinks of them."

You are trying to frame bullying campaigns as normal consequences for antisocial behavior, but the antisocial behaviors under discussion here are "user posted fanart broadly disliked by the community and associated with specific ideologies long after the initial fandoms were crystallized" and "is the CEO of a social media website that is implementing features that the users dislike."

"People deserve to be screamed at until they stop the bad behavior" is punitive and shitty and so broad and open to so many interpretations that you're basically saying "it's open season on screaming at people." I think that it's bad behavior to support neoliberal political candidates who prop up capitalism but it would be horrible for me to run harassment campaigns against everyone who says "vote blue no matter who" even though I think that attitude perpetuates real world harms. (And it also wouldn't convince those people to change their minds! The fact that I think they are doing something harmful doesn't give me the social license to send hundreds of people to harass them! And it wouldn't work! These kinds of campaigns don't effect change they just isolate people and erode trust and civility jesus fuck we need to be coalition building not posting callouts over whatever activity has been deemed "freak behavior" this week)

some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

oh buddy, I think I get where you're coming from here but considering the kinds of behavior under discussion this is just straight up fascist. You are literally saying that people should be banished from society for wrongthink because nobody under discussion here has actually committed an act of cruelty.

(one of the things that i'm putting under the heading of "tumblr conspiracist thinking" is "staff is currently and continually intentionally flagging certain LGBTQ tags and bloggers" - there is ample evidence that the current staff is working to unfuck flagging and blocked tags that was done long before this crew was working on it. People talk about "tumblr had to settle because their filtering disproportionately impacted lgbtq+ creators" and that is TRUE however that was a filter that was established under different owners with different policies and different staff; the implication that the current staff is guilty of trying to stifle LGBTQ+ content because a lawsuit started before the Automattic purchase of tumblr ended in a financial settlement is just bad, wrong, incorrect, faulty logic. And if I might indulge in a bit of my own conspiracist thinking: I actually suspect a lot of the flagging and tagging and blocking of trans women specifically might actually be targeted attacks of individual users by terfs - many of the things that are getting flagged as needing a community label are things that use tags that terfs follow to attack and if enough users click "this needs a community label" the post will get flagged - I don't know that that's what's going on but just operating on occam's razor I think it's a lot more likely that terfs are coordinating attacks on trans people than that there is a secret group of cryptoterfs on staff taking time out of their day to ensure that trans users get flagged, if only because I think that the vocally trans positive former members of the staff would have said something about it.)

So, given that my position is "it is unlikely that anyone on staff is intentionally targeting LGBTQ+ groups HOWEVER prior policies enacted harm against LGBTQ+ groups and there is visible evidence that the current staff is trying to repair that damage" I'm not seeing any behaviors here that call for individual employees or users to get targeted with harassment from thousands of users.

But anyway, back to the specifics of the ask:

some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

Do you have any idea how frequently amends are made and never circulated as widely as the callout post? Do you have any idea how frequently callout posts are incorrect, and exaggerate the things that need to be amended? I'm reminded of Lindsey Ellis, who was the victim of a years-long targeted harassment campaign and made multiple apologies over the years who was finally driven off of her primary platform because she carelessly misspoke and the people who had been targeting her for years were able to make a post that she had long disavowed and was a relic of her dealing with the aftermath of sexual violence go viral. The internet doesn't let people make amends; people see accusations. They see the first post, not the follow up. That's why starting these campaigns is shitty and dangerous even if you *personally* believe that you'll forgive an individual once they "make amends." (and the "amends" people usually demand are "i want this person gone from the internet forever and cut out of this part of their life" - that's not really something that's fair to ask of people when so much of the world is online these days.)

the people of wendy's have a moral right to scream at the manager if said manager sprays them in the neck with milkshake every time they go to pick up their order

No they don't. Straight up. If the manager of a wendy's sprays you in the neck with a milkshake you have the right to escalate your complaint right up the chain, take your business away and never come back, warn other people "hey the manager sprayed me with a milkshake, stay away," but you don't have the moral right to escalate the situation by screaming at them (and you certainly don't have that right if you happened to get sprayed with some milkshake while the manager was attempting to fix the frostee machine when you came to pick up your order, which I think is actually more analogous to what is happening here).

someone in ur notes constructing an equivalence between @tting staff and getting nuked to yelling at a wendy's manager and getting kicked out

A big point that I think you're missing here is that @-ing staff when there is a problem on a post or you see harassment is generally pretty acceptable (though much less effective than filing a support claim), but the issue under discussion isn't @-ing staff, it was pointing thousands of angry people at two specific people who are *part* of staff and holding those two individuals responsible for all the problems that users see with tumblr.

partyjockers got nuked because their post directed a flood of harassment at one staff member in a post where they had highlighted that user's URL and name:

This is explicitly saying "users like the one I screenshotted are the reason you're being attacked by terfs" because one member of staff posted fanart from two franchises that tumblr-the-userbase has deemed off limits.

(Do you have any idea how extreme a bubble this is? Do you walk into barnes and noble and sigh because the managers are fascists who want trans people dead because there's harry potter merch everywhere? JK rowling is a terf and a horrible fucking person and I am no longer personally comfortable engaging with that fandom but people posting fanart of a franchise are not personally attacking you even if it feels like they are disregarding your humanity; you cannot consider other people's participation in huge, popular, mainstream fandoms as a sign that they are plotting against you this is why i'm calling this conspiracist thinking the entire scorched earth conspiracy spawned from someone interpreting a staff member's art as esoteric signposts signalling their hatred of trans people. Do you remember when the stupid harry potter game came out and this entire website was despondent because it meant that people didn't care about trans people? That's not actually what it meant! What it meant is that the vast majority of people on the planet have neither a twitter nor a tumblr account and have no idea how shitty JK rowling is to trans people and they don't interpret "harry potter imagery" as "covert terf signal" they interpret it as "possibly the most mainstream fantasy series in the last fifty years")

This isn't someone calling out the manager after they spray you with a milkshake. The manager asking someone to leave after they started screaming that the cashier's earrings were hate speech.

This analogy got out of hand but please just understand that there's a difference between @-ing an account that people are paid to monitor as part of their jobs and that they have support and coworkers to help with and @-ing someone's personal account.

Nobody got a post deleted because the used @ staff, they got their posts deleted because they focused viral negative attention on individual users.

[germiyahu]

The way the Brainrot Left brays and hoots and hollers about 10/7 in my mind is more evidence they don't see Palestinians as complex human actors in a conflict, just as trauma tokens or vague forces of nature. If you grab these Lefties by the ear and ask them to acknowledge 10/7 as an atrocity, as a traumatizing episode in the millennia story of antisemitism, they'll do one of a few things:

Deny it even happened. Which is absurd on the face of it. These people were cheering when they thought Hamas stood even a chance of winning. But after the public backlash and the impending retaliation, suddenly these brave freedom fighters couldn't be bothered to show up for battle? So why praise "resistance" against Israeli colonization while denying that Israel is retaliating against something? 10/7 took years to plan and it took a lot of smart motivated people to pull it off. Hamas are not stupid and they're not disorganized. You're doing a disservice to the alleged antifascist anticolonial group you love so much.

Claim it was a psyop. Again, kind of does a disservice to your brave freedom blorbos if you think Israel planned it all, and worse, that they duped Palestinians into playing right into their plan. So you basically think Hamas are completely incapable of doing anything, and you think "this is what the revolution looks like!" is the occupying Apartheid regime staging the revolution for cameras? This is just "how does Hamas have color printers lol fake news!" again.

Say "this started before 10/7 zioscum!" And this is more subtle, but these "well what did you expect to happen" and "when nonviolent resistance fails, the People only have one choice!" takes are equally condescending and dismissive. Hamas are not automata, they are not brainless organisms reacting to stimuli. When Israel acts, they decide to react. When Israel does not act, they are actively planning ways in which they themselves can act because they have declared an unending war on the state of Israel. No matter how long a truce lasts they will always want to break it. Because that's the philosophy they ascribe to. That's the politique they have chosen. Acting like anything in the Israel-Palestine conflict is a natural inevitable instance of the law of cause and effect is to strip the agency of the actors involved.

Hamas, and the Palestinians they "lead," are not pawns, they're not objects. They're people. Civilians participated in 10/7, some civilians volunteered to hold hostages for Hamas. Civilians choose to abide by Israel's warnings and flee to Rafah. Hamas tries to stop them and steals their aid. Hamas planned and executed 10/7 despite the two sides being at peace and there being no noticeable worsening societal stress in Gaza. Hamas and their allies launched unprecedented rocket barrages at Israel with the intent of maximizing civilian damage and terror. You notice all those verbs? That have human active agents as their subjects?

Palestinians and Israelis are doing things to each other. The passive voice language serves to obscure this fact. And these people have motivated reasons for doing those things. Those reasons can be complex and inscrutable and go back decades, centuries. They can even feel inevitable or natural. But everything going on is a choice or a decision made by someone, and executed by people who willingly follow that someone. We've seen Palestinians and Israelis stand against those powerful people. Israelis are protesting and going to jail. Palestinians are demonstrating against the fascist regime that's had its boot on their necks for almost 20 years.

I don't like the passive voice trick being used when Israel does something either, but the battalions of the Tumblrina Red Army have a bad habit of doing something even more annoying. They don't report on things as "rockets were launched into Israel," they deny anything is done to Israel. If they can't do that, they claim it's propaganda, they invent or hyperfocus on what they consider an equivalent Israeli action against Hamas and say "they started it!" Anything Hamas does or has done or could do to Israel, in their minds, is a natural inevitable perfectly just and rational and good reaction to something Israel did. What did you expect to happen? Um this doesn't matter because Israel did something worse see!

Hamas' actions are meaningless, without motivation, without underlying philosophy, without any kind of actionable goal. Why should they care about Hamas' charter? Why should they care about the origin of "from the river to the sea"? The why of Hamas or any Palestinian resistance doing anything doesn't matter to them. They only care that these groups are fighting so they can write their own values and ideals onto them. That's why in their minds the Gaza War is the biggest thing going on in the world, and the biggest thing in decades. That's why they see this as such an existential battle against capitalism and American hegemony, and why they think they even have a stake in land disputes in the Middle East at all.

I hope you can see how this is utterly dehumanizing language wrapped up in the pretext of support. Hamas fighters are not lines of computer code who act without thought. Aggression against Israel is not some divine natural punishment from the social justice gods. We'll never get anywhere so long as people refuse to see Palestinian militant groups as people with agency. Is it a wonder the Tumblr Left seems incapable of condemning them when they do something genuinely immoral? They think Hamas are amoral, because they truly don't see them as humans.

#israel #palestine #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #jumblr

[antifainternational]

Do you have advice on how to be actively antifascist when you're too scared to go to protests? I try to go to demonstrations with no confrontation with police or nazis, but I feel like it would be more important to go to counter-protests and blocks against nazi groups but I know I would panic and be more of a hassle than help if things got hectic/violent. So what can I do to 'make up' for that? I really want to do something active but am easily overwhelmed.

Hi Anon, sorry for the delay responding to your question. We have a two-part response. Let's start with the part you're not going to like: PART ONE: GO TO THE COUNTER-DEMONSTRATION Are you afraid of what will happen to you if you go to the counter-demo? Are you afraid of being doxxed or harassed or arrested or injured or maybe even killed? WELCOME TO THE CLUB! EVERYONE who goes to confront fascists is scared of doing it. They're right to be scared. Part of being a fascist is encouraging and glorifying violence against your opponents. The list of fascist attacks against anti-fascists is too long to get into here, but this lil' snippet from research done by the Center for Strategic and International Studies paints the picture:

On top of that, fascists will inevitably have their best friends the police there to "protect them" which means to attack and arrest anyone who shows up to oppose the fascists. Sounds like there are a lot of good reasons to just stay home and let the fascists have the streets; or let other people deal with the problem for you. But when you choose to do that, Anon, you're sending three clear messages: 1) You're telling the fascists that few people oppose them and that the "silent majority" are on their side. 2) You're telling people targeted by fascists that the allies they thought they had weren’t sincere in their expressions of solidarity and support.  That when push comes to shove, the people who claimed to stand with them can’t be counted on to actually do what’s necessary to defend the marginalized and vulnerable.  Not actively opposing a hate event tells the people targeted that they face bigoted extremists by themselves; that they are alone and vulnerable when people are publicly threatening their existence. 3) You're telling the anti-fascists who did turn up to counter-protest that you do not have their backs.  It tells them that you can not be counted on or trusted and that anything you’ve said about standing against bigotry in your own community was lip service.  It tells the people who did turn up that their own bodies, their own lives, their own safety is much less important than your own.  It tells them that you’re okay putting them in danger so long as you get to do whatever else you’re doing that day instead of standing with them. The problem, Anon, is that the most effective way for anti-fascists to protect themselves in confrontations with fascists is to turn up in greater numbers than the fascists. This has been borne out in thousands of confrontations with fascists over decades. You not showing up = endangering anti-fascists. We get that you can’t be there every single time; no one can do that.  We get that doing this kind of work is scary; but we’ve all done lots of things in our lives that were necessary to do, even though they were scary. No one is asking you to stick around in a situation that turns too dangerous to stick around in, but not showing up at all helps no one but the fascists. We think you need to do what you need to do in order to get past your fear and make every attempt to show up when it counts. If you absolutely can’t be there, make sure you’ve found two people to take your place.   PART TWO: ANTI-FASCISM IS SO MUCH MORE THAN CONFRONTING FASCISTS IN THE STREETS

Here's the part you'll like better, Anon. We know that violent confrontations with fascists is what makes the headlines and it's what most people think about when they think about "antifa," in the same way that most people only think about strikes when they think about unions. But in both cases - violent clashes with fascists or strikes - that's really maybe 1-2% of what actually happens. Take us for example: While most of us in Antifa International (a 10-person collective) will go out to confront fascists in our own communities, the entirety of our collective's work is done online - spreading news about anti-fascist actions and events, communicating the tenets of anti-fascism, and supporting anti-fascist efforts globally however we can. THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS YOU CAN DO IN THE ANTI-FASCIST MOVEMENT BESIDES CONFRONTING FASCISTS IN THE STREETS! You want some examples? Here's a list of 30 antifascist actions that we believe anyone (maybe with the help of a couple of friends) could pull off. Don't like any of those? Check out 40 Ways To Fight Fascists. You could also take a deep dive into the 11,000+ posts in our archive to find examples/inspiration from anti-fascist actions/events around the world. Or read We Go Where They Go, which details how Anti-Racist Action, the direct predecessors to today's North American anti-fascist movement, did their thing. Pick something you're comfortable doing, do the thing, reflect on what worked/what didn't work/how you'd do it better next time, then move on to the next thing. It doesn't matter if the action you choose seems small or not-that significant - every antifascist action, no matter how small, counts. If the nearly 40,000 followers of this blog all took one small antifascist action today, that would add up to something pretty significant! GO DO THE THING! LET US KNOW HOW IT GOES!

#antifa #antifascist #antifascism #confronting fascists #safety

[zorciarkrildrush]

Chag sameach!

I think I now get what I was missing in Enlightened Terminally Online Leftist Discourse, with help from this post. (I'm leaving out a good bit in the chain about American education because that part's really not my problem, but it is interesting)

People have decided their politics are an identity and not an ideology. That's why they think antisemitism is just opt-in! If they don't identify as antisemitic, if they don't look at their arm and see a red band with a swastika on it, then they can't be The Bad Guys. They're safe! The reason a lot of Jews don't talk to them anymore is irrelevant, and I bet those guys are (again! as an identity that defines who they are as a person, in every facet!) Zionists anyway so who cares. There's no reason to talk to them, or regard them as human, they aren't Part Of Us, The Good Guys. While there, why ever study what Zionism is or what it means to Jews? You don't need to do any research, just sharing emotional social media posts that tell you what to feel and conform with your Good Identity is good enough. Those guys definitely know what's up. If they tell you someone is Necessarily Bad, that's just the way it is - and it conforms with your identity so it feels good.

If Jewish concerns are only because of The Bad Guys - (Only ever The Dastardly White Supremacists, nobody else, right?) Then surely you, certified Good Person that you are, have no obligation to care about them more than anything else. Just punch Nazis and move on, right? It's all good! And listen to marginalized people. As long as their opinions conform with your identity. Otherwise they must be... not marginalized, actually. Not worthy of protection, actually.

And again, and I can't stress this enough, people legitimately think antisemitism and pervasive anti-Jewish sentiment, well-hidden behind popular causes, started and stopped with the holocaust. It happened once, it basically happened for no reason, and it was done solely by Bad Guys holding The Bad Opinions. You, since you don't identify as bad, can't be part of the same problem. Surely people will know that? That you're necessarily good, that their worries are unfounded? The Jews in your life and your circles definitely know you mean fascism specifically when you talk about Zionism... right? The decades of popular and arbitrary use of "Zionist" as a a more publicly acceptable replacement for "Jew I want to die but be righteous about it" don't factor in... right? A social media post told me it's fine. Or someone who says they're a Jew says it's fine. So my identity is secure, surely.

The fact you identify as anti-racist and antifascist is well and good. It is! But unlike other identities, where deciding to identify as such is the only validation required - this one requires actual work. Listening to other humans, even if you decided they don't share your identity, should not be difficult to you. If your reaction to Jews celebrating their cool holiday that has doughnuts and candles and songs, or how unsafe they feel right now, is to immediately talk about how Some Jews Are Good But Some Are Bad And We Must Always Watch Out And Exclude And Condemn The Bad Ones (they hide in plain sight don't you know), you aren't actually furthering any agenda - except, you know, the anti-Jewish agenda. You aren't gaining allies or changing anyone's mind for the better. It doesn't matter if this doesn't conform with your identity! You might still do it anyway! Anybody can!

And it will be with the best of intentions. That's how it works.

#I don't know how many gentiles this will reach but like #if you're a leftist and want equality and peace please understand these very good messages are incessantly perverted #all the time #you HAVE to know you aren't sharing misinformation or malicious conspiracy theories #you HAVE to understand if you're contributing to peace and coexistence or just further bloodshed and division #in Israel and in the diaspora #the danger is everywhere #that's why Zionism fucking came about #anyway happy 2nd candle babes #selfpost #antisemitism #i/p #antizionism

[xass4ss1n]

These teeth yield a smile. But note these fangs can and will rip out your unyielding throat if you're pro radical in any nature. Fuck Antifa and the garbage they roll in. Im pro nature not neo nazi fucks like antifascist or Antifa. Get bent commie scum if you think youll survive in my territory. for long.

#werewolfkin #werewolf #lycan #lycanthrope #werewolves #lycanthropecore #alterhuman #lycanthropy #male werewolf #straight werewolf #werewolfcore #fuck out of here with your commie shit #rip your heart out baby #fangs sink into your flesh like a hot knife through butter #i accept anyone who doesnt run under that red and black double flags. #but know this ill hunt these bastard children down like tenneyman square in the 90s. #i prowl and watch. #my kindness is wonderous #but my hate is searing #fuck around and find out #fuck with a wolf #species dysphoria #i only protect my being #this isnt hate speech of anykind this is freedom to say what i need to to put a subject to rest #im not hating on anyone who doesnt think antifa is #cool just so we're clear #was born this way.. 🤷🐺🐾🐾🥩🥓🍗🌕🌃 #antifascism #all of you radical fucks #grrrraaaahhhh!!!

[revolutionarysuicide]

heya I just saw the post about the tory government trans country blacklist, what can I do to oppose this (I am a citizen of the UK)

i mean there's already been a many years long campaign for self-id, which would make the list of approved countries for automatic grc approval redundant. i suppose if you want to oppose that specific policy then you could just involve yourself in the existing campaign for self-id—i'm not sure if "keep the limited list of countries where if you get gender recognition in that country you get an automatic british grc, but just don't remove countries from that list, and don't implement self-id either" is a campaign that would get much traction lol.

but also i think the gra reform campaign should be lower down on the list of priorities of the trans liberation movement, like my birth certificate doesn't really impact anything in my life and that's the only thing a grc would change. a female grc would make it easier for me to be placed in a female prison which is important, although a grc is neither a requirement for nor a guarantee of being placed in a gendered prison matching your identity, and i would rather prison placement didn't depend on grc status than just give out grcs more easily (i would also rather prisons didn't exist, or as more immediate reformist measure, prisons were desegregated, but the latter is probably nearly just as hard to fight for as abolition so you may as well not bother).

i do have a lot of things to say about trans organising in britain but it's hard to discuss on tumblr bc much of it ties into my own organising i've been doing throughout my life and i don't want that tied to my tumblr account lol. i guess i can say, definitely get organised in some way. if you're in a union you can push for pro-trans policies in your union (and possibly pro-trans campaigns impacting trans workers or service users in the sector you work in). and get in touch with trans people near you to start doing some irl organising, starting with more local campaigns. like is there a transphobic gp practice near you? could you organise a campaign to get them to agree to do bridging prescriptions? do you live near a gic you could do some kind of organising around? alternatively there's the more antifascist organising which some groups do, which personally i think are a poor strategic decision to invest time and effort into, but i know some people will prefer that and it's better than doing nothing, so if your local group wants to do that (and knows what they're doing—obviously confronting fascists is dangerous), you could do that. even like a stickering campaign is possible as just something to get started with a local group. i know all that is not about the blacklist but for the blacklist the most relevant thing would probably be self-id like i said at the start, but also like i said i don't think that should be a priority for the trans lib movement.

#asks

[sethshead]

“***LONG READ AHEAD***

“Stop talking about the Azov battalion.

“Just stop it.

“Stop posting about it, stop FOCUSING on it.

“YEEEEEEEESSSSS! there are neo-nazis in Ukraine. There are nazis across the entire Europe, not just Eastern Europe, including the UK, yet somehow NO ONE organises ‘sPeCiaL MiLitArY oPeRaTioNs to denazify and demilitarise’ sovereign countries. 🤷‍♂️

“Were you against military interventions in Iraq? Yes? Afghanistan? Yes? Vietnam? Yeah, so we thought. Were all the people of those countries pure good? No. Were their governments unproblematic? Hell, no. Yet somehow in this case you're all ‘omg look at these Azov guys... Hm... looks like these Ukrainians aren't that innocent after all, huh. I don't know man, there's a lot of nazis there, these Russians kinda have a point’. 😒

“You are literally repeating Putin's justification for this war. *slow clap*

“And it comes from the left, of all places on the political spectrum.

“It's Ukraine now, but do you know what Poles and other Eastern Europeans think when we hear or read this from you?

“We instantly think: WHAT IF IT WAS US? What if it IS us, next? What would our British FRIENDS do, if it was us.

“What if Russia suddenly decided that (and humour us here!), Poland was violating human rights through anti-LGBT policies, anti-abortion bills, and the not letting Afghan refugees through the Polish-Belarusan border due to racism. ALL ARE 100% TRUE. All are wrong, and we know it. We’re literally the left, as in, we were activists against these policies in Poland, before we moved to the UK, or are still involved fighting against them. We know about our countries' issues, and we know we need to sort ourselves out, but what if SOMEONE decided they'd do it for us, they'd come in with their military and de-...whatever us?

“And here you’d be, digging out those articles on the web that happen to be TRUE, but in your hands they would serve nothing more than to further the success of the aggressor's propaganda, and the implied between the lines argument that ‘we got what was coming to us’. Some friends, indeed. ‘Comrades’.

“Do you know why it’s not us though? Why it’s not Poland, Latvia, Slovakia?

“Because they joined NATO. They joined NATO to have protection from Russia.

“Think of countries like Latvia. Less than 2 million people, a tiny military, and a large minority Russian population, some exclusively Russian-speaking, many Putin-supporting.

“Latvia has over the years introduced a number of language laws, in retaliation for the Russians dominating public life pre-1989. Would that be a good enough argument for a ‘military operation’? Of course it would. But it won’t happen, because they’re in fecking NATO. So your ‘stop NATO expansion’ spiels are falling on deaf ears in Eastern Europe, for reasons you need to either accept or not, but just stop talking.

“But, back to the main point:

“A week or two ago half of you didn't know about the Azov Battalion, and you didn't care, because it's far, somewhere among these savages from the East. Now there's mentions of some nazis so you ‘did your research’, and you're sudeenly experts on Eastern Europe, westsplaining (thank you for that term, Zosia Brom from @Freedom News) our politics and mutual conflicts to us like we’re children.

“So let us tell you this - you will never understand us, and how the experiences of multiple occupations shaped our societies, and how that historical experience is present in our everyday conversations, and in our system of values.

“In our part of Europe, everyone has had beef with each other, and we are raised with that knowledge about each other. There are CENTURIES of beef between Poland and Ukraine, centuries of bloody and painful history. We put it all aside on day ONE of the Russian invasion.

“You can bet your bottom pound that there are leftists, antifascists, completely apolitical people, and, yes - the nazis, fighting side by side in Ukraine right now, because for as long as this war goes on, the enemy is only ONE, and we can go on hating each other later.

“Your comments come from one place, and one place only - never having been under Russian/Soviet occupation. Never living in what is essentially the shadow of Mordor.

“Western imperialism, NATO imperialism - those are your main enemies, and we get it. We don’t like them either, but for our nations they are the lesser evil.

“Our enemy is Russian imperialism, and on this front, Eastern European countries choose to stick with NATO, because what comes with Russian imperialism is more than extraction of natural resources and economy, but something much worse.

“What comes is the russification of culture, the rewriting of history, the banning of books and their authors, the banning of Western media, access to information, limiting civil rights, it’s the comeback of the secret police, the massive propaganda machine, the end of independent media, the censorship of arts, the unexplained disappearances of dissenting individuals, the state repressions, politicising curriculum and indoctrinating children from primary school, the surveillance of the population, the infiltration of universities and workplaces.

“Romanians get it, Georgians get it, Lithuanians get it, Poles get it because we have all LIVED THROUGH IT, some of us more than once. That’s why Ukrainians are arming themselves with whatever they can, and if they can’t have weapons, they will carry Molotovs, scythes and pickle jars. Because they know what’s at stake.

“They didn’t choose this and they don’t want to face the enemy unarmed and helpless. Not everyone wants to fight, but plenty do, regardless of experience.

“We feel for the men who wanted to cross the borders with their families, but were stopped from leaving, separated from their families, and given arms. Most of them have had mandatory military training, so during war they are army reserves. This is why you avoid armed conflict at all cost…

“And to those of you that think, or sometimes even tell us point-blank that Ukraine should surrender because they can’t win anyway - wow, that wasn’t even as quick as we thought. Gosh darned it, you stuck by us for almost two weeks now until you decided Ukraine was worth sacrificing for the peace of mind of Western Europe.

“We’ve even heard that Ukrainians should protest like Gandhi, maybe stand in front of tanks with flowers and shit. You’ve obviously never seen what pacification of peaceful protests by an army looks like. But some of us have.

“Should Ukraine surrender? NO. Not ever. Fuck, no. As lefties, we oppose imperialism, and fascism, which is now what the Russian state is serving their citizens with their new propaganda.

“Speaking of which, what DO they say about the war in Russia?

“So glad you asked. Apart from the decent folks that are getting arrested by their thousands for opposing the war, despite there being a punishment of up to 15 years in prison for using the words ‘war’, ‘aggression’, ‘invasion’, etc., you can hear the rest repeating the version of events peddled by the state:

“‘Today Z is a symbol of the liberation operation for Donbass and liberating Ukraine from their nazi regime, it’s a symbol of protecting the fatherland’- Bikers from Ivanovo

“b) ‘We know what we are fighting for. So that there is no fascism, weapons, so that the Ukrainian nation can live in peace. We will help them. The events of the last few days are reminiscent of June 1941. Almost the entire Europe under Hitler’s flag attacked us back then. Now they have gathered under the flag of NATO and pushed Ukrainian nazis on Russia. The president could not wait for missiles and bombs to start falling on us. If diplomacy didn’t help,we had to start a surgical military operation’. – Nikolai Kruchkin, director of the Saransk Museum.

“c) ‘As our boys are fulfilling their mission of denazification of Ukraine, residents of Russia, including KuZBass [notice the “Z”], are encountering unprecedented economic and moral pressure from other countries, and a wave of disinformation about our special operation. The Z symbol is an expression of support for our troops and the unity of our society’. – Sergei Civiliev, governor of Kemerovo

“Quotes translated from a post on Tomasz Piechal - Szkice Wschodnie Thank you for that btw <3

“Wonderful, innit? But you see, we’re familiar with that, too. Because that’s all we had on TV when we were parts of the Soviet Union. There was no ‘independent media’. There was no media at all, apart from state media. Right now, Russia is organising ‘humanitarian convoys’ with food to the bombed Ukrainian cities. AND they are bringing film crews. But Ukrainians don’t take the food from them, so they bring actors who pose as 'deeply thankful' Ukrainians for TV propaganda.

“Alright… let’s have some FAQs

“Q: ‘Why did Putin attack Ukraine?’

“A: to finish what he started when he took Crimea, and incorporate the ‘fake nation’ of Ukraine into Russia, duh. For centuries, Russia suppressed the Ukrainian language and culture, and it’s what they are planning now. Putin’s talk about Russians and Ukrainians being ‘one nation’, or about Ukraine ‘not being a real country’ is just preparing ground for russification of Ukraine. Do you know that Ukraine used to be called Malorossiya? (Little Russia)?

“During Putin’s rule, he and his supporters have long peddled the idea of ‘ruski mir’ - ‘Russian world’ - an ideology that says Russian civilisation extends to anywhere Russians live.

“Do you see where this is going?

“Get it now???

“If not, read this article that the Russian ‘news’ outlet RIA Novosti published by mistake, that was supposed to run AFTER Russia's ‘obvious’ victory over Ukraine. They promptly removed it, but not quickly enough. It had already been screencapped by multiple readers, and translated into English by a Pakistani newspaper: https://thefrontierpost.com/the-new-world-order/

“Q: Is Ukraine a nazi country?

“A: If you think a right wing party with 1.5% support makes a country neo-nazi, then boy, do I have news for you about the rest of Europe.

“Q: But don’t you care about the Ukrainian nationalists and the history of nazi collaboration???

“A: Don’t YOU care about the Russian Wagner Group and the Z campaign?

“But yes, we do care about Ukrainian nationalism, and sadly we know it very well.

“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia

“Like we said, centuries of bloody beef between us. None of it matters now. But Ukrainian nationalists =/= Ukrainians.

“And Ukraine has never been a threat to us, nor to the safety and independence of any other Eastern European countries, as opposed to You-Know-Who.

“Q: Why are there so many Russians in Donbas?

“A: Majority of the Russians in Donetsk and Luhansk were settled there when Ukraine was incorporated into the USSR, after Stalin-orchestrated Holodomor, the Great Famine, wiped out 4 million Ukrainians in the 1930s. Local population of Donbas was also decimated, so Russian settlers moved in. In 1991, in Ukraine’s independence referendum, most ethnic Russians in Donbas said ‘yes’ to living in free Ukraine, and for years, everything was peachy. What changed the moods? Mostly Yanukovych in 2010, but that part you should know from the news coverage.

“And mind you, over 2 million ethnic Russians left Donetsk and Luhansk when separatists started taking over. What does that tell you?

“Q: What do Ukrainians want?

“A: They want to be left the fuck alone by Russia, and make their own choices. Those choices include joining NATO and the EU, as the second largest European country. You might dislike one or both, but it’s not you having to deal with Putin’s moods on a daily.

“Q: ‘Isn’t fighting for the nation against leftist principles?’

“A: Oh, that comment is so fucking rich coming from a country that had to fight for its independence exactly 0 times. Not aimed at you Scots, Irish, and Welsh btw. You know what we mean. *fist bump* :)

“How the left wing in one of the most imperialist countries on this planet has the balls to tell us we shouldn’t resist imperialists by any means necessary is beyond us.

“It’s not fighting for the nation, ya pricks. It’s fighting against being basically colonised. One would think that leftists should support it by default, kind of a low hanging fruit really… but what do we know.

“Q:’Should leftists fight alongside the state army?’

“A: Who the fuck cares NOW? That is such a first world problem question.

“Q: ‘What do you say about the racism on the Polish and Ukrainian border?’

“A: It’s HORRIFIC. We’re deeply ashamed, sad and angry about it. We don’t stand for any of this. Safe passage for everyone NOW! If you want to know what’s happening on the Polish-Ukrainian and the Polish-Belarusan border, please follow Grupa Granica on facebook - they are a collective project of 14 groups and orgs working with refugees in Poland, that is responding to the outrageous treatment of Afghan, Syrian and other BIPOC refugees by our government and Border Force.

“Q: ‘Don’t you think there’s a double standard with the way how refugees from Ukraine are being treated compared to Syrians/Afghans?’

“A: Absolutely. We noticed it from day one, the bitter irony does not escape us. No one is asking why Ukrainians have smartphones, or nice looking clothes. People feel sorry for Ukrainian men who were forbidden from crossing the border, yet when Syrian men appeared they said they should have stayed in their country and fought. Baffling!

“Q: ‘Was Holodomor real? Did Stalin actually starve Ukraine?’

“A: Yes. Anyone who says otherwise will be banned from this page. No, it wasn’t ‘nazi propaganda’. Stalin’s soldiers went door to door and confiscated anything that would be edible enough to allow Ukrainians to survive the famine.

“PS We take requests for informative posts. Some of us here are historians.

“Q: ‘Should we arm Ukrainians?’

“A: YES. Arm Ukraine. Arm Ukrainians. Arm the civilians who want to fight. Arm the volunteers.

“UKRAINE CAN WIN THIS. But it needs support.

“Even antifascist brigades are joining the Ukrainian resistance and you can't see why because there's some nazis there too.

“You're against volunteer legions, because defence is the job for the state.

“Some of you suggested that Ukraine should surrender because they've been in the Soviet Union once, can't be that bad.

“And too many of you don't understand why ordinary people are taking up arms in the first place.

“Long story short, Western lefties... We’re kinda sick of you. You really eat up what you read on the Internet like Pelicans instead of talking to Eastern European comrades, of which you have plenty around you. And you don't support us. You don't support our unconditional right to freedom, and that is the most disappointing.

“Our expectations were low, but holy fuck.

“Enjoy that boot.

“PS Слава Україні. смерт врогом.”

h/t Polish leftists UK - Lewaki w UK

[howboutthatbreadtho]

Gotta say, even though I'm luckily no longer living with my dad his obvious disdain for anything he either doesn't like or understand and the combination of looking for me to be his Little Him makes me want to say some really mean shit about how I'm happy that I grew out of being an inconsiderate, annoying, ableist pedant that took being an Anarchist as "his thing" so pretends that doing antifascist work irl since 2016 is nothing compared to being a programmer on Reddit that listens to Richard Wolff

Last time I visited he told a "funny anecdote" about an abusive ex who stalked his partner trying to get away from him to her jiu-jutsu gym and when my mom and I were like "hey it feels super fucking weird that your gym is allowing one of the few non-male members to feel unsafe because you're getting off on the fact that he bought a fake belt and sucks at the martial art so you can beat him easily when you're rolling" and he was like 'oh I don't get why you're mad at me for telling a story' as if it's incomprehensible that I had objections to the handling of the situation.

It's not a big leap to see that he thinks (but doesn't materially) understand/respect people who aren't cis men, but with his supposed egalitarian radical cred he can't understand that. Along with so many other aspects of actually living the reality of trying to build a non-hierarchical society, he can't wrap his head around why I drove myself into the ground picking up the slack on household maintenance tasks (dishes, laundry, folding/sorting, pest control wrt. food sources for bugs being cleaned up, sweeping, wiping down the kitchen, etc.) when it took my mom getting *literally fucking paralyzed with a neurological disorder* to do any daily household tasks with any regularity and talking shit about me for "being so hard on my siblings" when I had to pick up their slack every couple days without fail.

Really glad that he constantly belittles me while misgendering me, my long-term partner, and my younger sibling's partner, combined with my mother who built her identity around being "gay and trans friendly" but makes every conversation I start about how it feels shitty that my dad still conceives of trans people as their agab even if he hadn't met them before they came out as just "having a hard time like I am, why do you have to be so difficult to talk to."

#personal #fuck if it isn't even more obvious now that I left that my parents are fucking poisonous to live with

[alexseanchai]

has anyone got handy an analysis post on what Chinese characters Sabine Cheng uses when she's writing her name for Mandarin speakers?

also ideally her family members' names, other than Marinette. I know @e-milieeee did a pre-"Shanghai" post on what Marinette's Chinese name might be, and I don't know as any of that reasoning would have changed post-"Shanghai". (though also I need to track that back down to see if there's more now.)

(ETA: found it! and there aren't post-"Shanghai" additions:)

(and as long as I'm at it, Fei and her father?)

#miraculous ladybug #sabine cheng #ml shanghai #ml fei

[asushunamir2051]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What's something you've written/brainstormed lately that you're excited about?

Hi! Ta great muchly for the ask, sorry I’ve taken so long to answer!

I think my favourite new WIP is Seagull Island. Haven’t got any plot or characters for it yet, just a wee island nation in the middle of the foggy patch in the North Atlantic where the Labrador Current meets the Gulf Stream.

They’ve got food forests, dire-opossums, houses made of repurposed shipping containers, adorable ponies, and a tradition of red tattoos datin back to prehistory.

They speak both their own language and their own dialect of English that’s so broad that it’s basically mutually unintelligible with standard English anyway.

And they’ve got an Easter celebration dedicated to the possibly made up folk heroine who ran the pub that was used as a base for the antifascist revolution of 47’

[ohcaptaindeal]

This blog is for fandom posts and whatever else including personal posts. I'll tag nsft.

I'm like 30ish so no minors.

DNI: Bigots, abusers, kids.

I'm pro do/be whatever you want as long as you're not harming anyone. I'm antifascist and thus do not believe in thought crimes or censorship.

If you don't want me following it's fine if you block me.

[punkshitposts]

everything is punk as long as it's antifascist and inclusive. punk is about not giving a fuck what anyone thinks and destroying capitalism so if what you're doing applies to either of those things and you aren't being a dick it's punk as all fuck

.

#anonymous #submission #not a shit post #queue #sfw #anon #answered

[antifainternational]

I've observed my employer (retail) doing something that might be fascist dog whistling. I suspect Jewish customers have stopped shopping there because of it. I want to get the word out but am concerned about losing my job over it. Can I pass on information to some antifa person who can do it instead? Ideally, do you know a journalist?

Hi there, Short answer: no. Long answer: there is no antifascist police that are there to take care of anti-semites or fascists in your community for you. If you've ID'd a problem or issue (and it certainly sounds like you have), it's on you to figure out what to do or who to go to in your community for backup. Now, we don't have a lot of details from you here, but we do have some ideas for you: -have you considered reaching out to the Jewish community in your area and maybe talking with some people about what you've observed? -are there antifa or other groups concerned with human rights in your area that you could contact and do the same with? -what journalists do you know where you live that you think might be interested in this? set up an anon twitter account, find them there, and DM them with what you have. If you're looking for other creative ideas that you could maybe adapt to your situation, read through our list of 30 antifascist actions to see if any might apply. If none of those fit your scenario, try having a look at 40 Ways To Fight Fascists. We hope that's a bit helpful - let us know how it goes!

[solacekames]

Text: @danarel 10/28/18 

You are either 100% anti-fascist or you're a fascist. No more pretending there is some middle ground. There are only two sides in this fight.

There is no time for both-side-ism here. The debate isn't even over, it never should have happened in the first place. The nazis killing Jews are from the same cloth that Sam Harris called "peaceful Nazis" when they confronted antifascists last year.

The people emboldened to build and send bombs to politicians, to kill POC in the open, are the same people who centrists said deserved a seat at the table and had a right to a platform. The same centrists who warned that the left was the problem, and allowed Nazis or organize.

I have not forgotten a single centrist who defended Nazis, fascists, added "anti-antifa" to their profiles, or gave platforms to these peddlers of death on their YouTube shows or podcasts. You chose your side, you decided to align with murders in order to score anti-left points

#antifa #exactly #I don't care if you're center left or radical left #as long as you're antifascist

[antifainternational]

Hey so I’ve been doing some history research on the Iron Front and, apparently, german antifascists at the time didn’t agree with them because they self-identified as Social Democrats who were against the Communist Party (though I’m guessing they specifically opposed Stalinist Communism).

So I guess my question is why do antifascist movements tend to use the three arrows symbol when, according to Wikipedia, the two groups were so opposed to eachother?

Oh, is it that time of the year again? The time when people ask what's up with three arrows antifascist symbol? Anon, if you're researching the subject, we hope you're including historian Mark Bray's Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook as part of your research. In that book, he talks about how the Iron Front was a militant antifascist organization created in late 1931 in Germany by the Reichsbanner, the socialist SPD, and various labor organizations (pg. 23). You are totally correct, Anon, that the Iron Front/SPD had long-simmering hostilities with the KPD, the German communist party at the time (Lyons, Matthew N., “Making Sense of Fascism,” Socialism and Democracy; July 2008; Vol. 22, No. 2). As Bray explains in his book, the “three arrows” symbol was created for the Iron Front by a Russian socialist living in Germany named Sergei Chakhotin.  “While walking around town, Chakhotin noticed that someone had drawn a line over a swastika to cover the Nazi logo.  This gave him the idea of turning the line into a downward facing arrow.  After discussing it with receptive comrades, he turned it into three arrows (Drei Pfeile).  In his mind, they stood for ‘unity, activity, discipline,” or the SPD, the unions, and the Reichsbanner. (Bray, pg. 24). Of course, the other well-known antifascist symbol is the "two flags," which originates with the KPD, who used it as the symbol for Antifaschistische Aktion, which they formed in response to the SPD's Iron Front. (Ibid., pg. 25). Sadly, the competition and infighting between the SPD/Iron Front and the KPD/Antifaschistische Aktion probably had a lot to do with why the German antifascist movement in the 1930s were unable to stop the Nazis rise to power. So back to your question, Anon: why would antifascists use an antifascist symbol that originates with a German antifascist group set up by socialists who were bitterly opposed to the German communist party? Guess you could also ask why antifascists would use the "two flags" antifascist symbol that originates with a German antifascist group set up by communists who were bitterly opposed to the German socialist party. The answer is the same: antifascists don't care as much about the squabbling between German communists and socialists 90 years ago as they do about the courageous example set by both groups' willingness to fight the Nazis. By using both symbols, antifascists today honour the courage and sacrifice that German antifascists - whether they were communists, socialists, or something else altogether - demonstrated by fighting back against fascism.

[antifainternational]

Hi! So I'm a history teacher in high school and I do some activism whenever I can outside of work, but I believe history is super important, especially to learn lessons from. I'd love to do some antifascist work in class too, but I'm not sure how to put it so it doesn't seem super obvious what I'm doing. I don't wanna push an ideology, I wanna make them think. You got any tips? Maybe other teachers?

Hello comrade! You're asking a question that I've struggled with myself over my career. Public education is a mass of contradictions, and to a large degree there's a disconnect between what I do in the classroom and what I do in the streets (and there has to be for the sake of my job!). This said, part of what made me into an activist was what I learned in school, especially in history class, and the classroom is a key battleground.  Some points to consider:  1. Education is never neutral or apolitical. That goes a hundredfold for history. If you're attempting or being encouraged to teach from some kind of "objective" perspective, know that by default that means a reactionary perspective. History has a distinct antifascist bias. :)  2. Much depends on where you are. In my district, I'm afforded a certain level of protection in terms of both human rights legislation, school board policy, and the curriculum itself (one of the courses I teach actually has an activist campaign as its final project). So if I'm accused of pushing my ideology on students, I can actually open a curriculum that includes, for example, discussion of Indigenous title and Israel's Apartheid Wall. I suspect most teachers aren't so lucky and I may not be for long if the present government here gets its way.  3. This said, your goal (and mine) is to make them think, not make them think exactly like you. And that's where I hand it over to my career-long obsession, critical pedagogy. Check out the works of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Henry Giroux, Neil Postman, et. al. if you haven't already. It's all about inquiry-based learning; asking the kinds of questions that lead students to critically examine the world around them for themselves. 4. To the extent that you're able, having a classroom that's a safe space is key. I find that on controversial issues, students, especially younger, more academically inclined students, will often reach for the answer that they think will impress me as an authority figure. Creating an anti-oppressive environment is a way to combat that. It means anything from openly questioning school rules around dress codes, lockdown drills, and standardized testing, to offering your pronouns on the first day of class, to ensuring that your material and visuals are representative of diverse cultures.  5. Bring in as many perspectives as you can. I remember my history textbook, for example, had a whole chapter on WWII and half a page on the Holocaust. While I disagreed with my teacher on many things, to his credit he took us to meet Holocaust survivors, one of whom had fought as a partisan in Poland after escaping. We also ended up having ISUs in that class with very open-ended subject matter, which was how my friends introduced me to the Spanish Civil War. 6. My Ancient Civilizations teacher, conversely, was very openly a socialist and a huge influence on me politically. He spent a lot of the class on looking at historical methods and what (and who) gets left out of history and anthropology. Again, completely within the scope of the curriculum, except it led to discussions of feminism, anti-colonialism, and anti-capitalism. 7. All of the above assumes a relatively harmonious classroom environment with students who are open to learning. I've also had students who were literal fascists. I ended up having, in many cases, having to resort to "you can think what you want, but the moment you're expressing this, you're violating the rights of other students in the classroom." I now have an Inclusive Space Policy in my syllabus, otherwise known as the This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things Policy, outlining the scope of what discourse is just not permitted in my class. Hope this helps, and good luck!